Ed Miliband's meeting with Russell Brand could be an absolute disaster

Ed Miliband is spotted leaving comedian Russell Brand's houseTwitter / ElisaMisu
Often, when a public figure is caught furtively leaving someone else's home under the cloak of darkness, it's because a tryst has taken place. It means one of the participants - maybe even both - has acted upon a regrettable impulse, junking many of the things they've long held dear for a transient moment of short-term gain.

It's grotty and it's grubby and nobody will feel good about it in the morning, but the fact that they were caught in the act makes it so much worse. Their shame will become a wound that never heals. They let people down, and everyone knows, and they'll have to take that to their graves.

Judging by the photo that did the rounds on Monday night, Ed Miliband has been caught having a tryst with Russell Brand. If it's true - and not one of those annoying Alison Jackson lookalike stunts that end up intermittently being shoehorned into newspapers when there's nothing else to talk about - the shame they'll both feel this morning will be profound.

Nobody comes out of this looking good. The best-case scenario is that Brand was hosting some sort of depraved sex party, and that Miliband had gone along to strap himself to a rotating plinth and act as a kind of fleshy, fluid-covered centrepiece. That's the best-case scenario. It's Miliband loosening up, they'll say. He's a sexual dynamo, they'll say. It'll probably be enough to win him a majority.

I really hope that's what happened at Brand's place, because the alternative is too horrific to even contemplate. The alternative is that one of them spent the evening convincing the other to come around to their way of thinking. And that doesn't bear thinking about. Because it either means that we'll soon see Miliband rock up to a youth centre in a manbun to launch something called My Manifesto-Wanifesto. Or it means Brand is about to endorse the Labour party.

And that would be a disaster.

REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

Brand's whole thing, his entire raison d'etre, is telling people not to vote. That's what he does now. That's his schtick. He wrote a book about it. He made a film about it. He's appeared on TV to talk about it, and written the world's most embarrassing song about it. People stop him in the street to congratulate him for it. "Thanks for telling me not to vote, Russell. I'm not going to vote now," they cry. "You're welcome," he replies, after consulting a thesaurus to find the most needlessly verbose synonyms for the words "you're" and "welcome".

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Sure, people have called Brand an idiot for this stance, but he's OK with that. He knows he's an idiot. He made a film about the Easter bunny. He dressed up as Willy Wonka for the Olympics. Idiocy is something with which he's profoundly comfortable.

For him to back a political party - especially now, after many of his followers have missed the chance to even register to vote - would be career suicide. The people who'd previously sided with him will feel betrayed and abandoned. They'll never forgive him. Without their support he'll cascade downwards through the diminishing strata of celebrity, through bad sitcoms and reality shows and shopping-centre openings, until he hits rock bottom and ends up successfully running for London mayor.

It'll be horrible to watch, but Brand should remember that he did it to himself. Let's all just shut our eyes and pray that Miliband just went to a sex party.